The development investment of Jike MIX is 2.8 times that of a mid to large SUV. Recently, An Conghui, President of Geely Holding Group and CEO of Jike Intelligent Technology, stated in an interview with First Financial News that the delivery of MIX as scheduled is the most challenging engineering research and development project for Geely in nearly 30 years of car manufacturing.
Since its debut at this year's Beijing Auto Show, the Extreme Krypton MIX has received a lot of market attention. Recently, with the official launch of the Extreme Krypton MIX, the market heat of this model has also reached its peak. The reason why this car has sparked market discussion is that in the homogenized competition of the new energy vehicle market, the Jike MIX is a "non mainstream" product. It adopts hidden double B-pillars, electric double doors, and 270 degree electric rotating seats for both the driver and passenger, taking into account the characteristics of SUVs and MPVs. The effective seating space has exceeded 90%, and it is difficult to find accurate benchmark products in the market.
Yang Dacheng, Vice President of Jike Intelligent Technology, told reporters that the number of patents for developing a new car model in the industry is generally in the double digits, and many of them are appearance patents. However, MIX has applied for more than 1000 new car patents, with over 60% of them being invention patents. For example, the research and development cost of a car door is over 400 million yuan, and the manufacturing cost is five times that of a regular car door; The cost of developing seats is more than three times that of conventional seats.
The high development costs of these enterprises also determine that Jike MIX cannot temporarily seize the market with a low price strategy in the fiercely competitive market. The pricing of 279900 yuan and 299900 yuan has indeed brought some controversy to the Jike MIX.
Why does Jike spend a huge amount of money to build a potentially risky car in the extreme "involution" of new energy vehicles?
Lis Consulting once released a research report stating that the Chinese new energy market is thriving, but behind the prosperity lies the influx of Chinese car brands into the mid to high end market, which brings about a homogeneous competition characterized by blurred intelligent differentiation, oversized dimensions, and similar shapes. The long-term result may be that the brand lacks intellectual barriers, follows the crowd, piles up intelligent configurations, and falls into an intelligent competition. However, it seems that various smart car brands have realized the problem and are trying to establish differentiation advantages.